


Pushing It All Away

by Merfilly



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Gen, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-01
Updated: 2007-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-06 04:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roy backslides, and can't bring himself to let Dinah be part of his life</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pushing It All Away

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by "Hate Me" by Blue October.

It was the eighth call from her. The eighth time he had refused to answer her call. Dick had been gone for two days, and still Roy couldn’t make himself answer the phone when she called.

He laid across the bed, still weak but no longer feeling the burning need to go score the smack that had brought him so low. Dick had been there, had held him through the worst of it. He knew he had lost something in Dick's eyes, by being weak enough to back slide, but Dinah….

Dinah would never forgive him. She had been there through those torturous nights, had held him, had kept him sane with her warm presence. She'd never accept his weakness, never let him forget that he was, down to the core of his being, a junkie.

He heard the phone again, and knew she was getting frantic, that it had been too long since he talked to her. That she was calling during the day, when he knew how tight her budget was, made that clear. He couldn't let her know; he had to answer it, had to push her away.

He couldn't face the thought of her disappointment, and she…she could read him like a book. 

If he pushed her away, if he made her realize he was not worth her time, maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't ever have to see her loathing him. He wouldn't have to watch her push him away if he stepped back, if he locked her out of his life first.

"'Lo," he said in a rough voice as he picked up the phone.

"Roy!" It was her voice, so worried, so stressed, and yet so soothing on his ears. He steeled his resolve; he did not deserve the warmth anymore, needed to punish himself for all he ever did, and for what he failed to do for her.

"Dinah, been out and about; saw you called a few times," he managed to say, keeping the lie out of his tone.

"Boy-o, are you okay?"

"Yeah, Di, I'm fine." He shrugged, though she could not see him. "Ya know, a guy's gotta have a life, Di. You callin' all the time, my ladies might get the wrong thought." 

There's a long pause, as that callous remark, that slap at her concern for him hits. "Sor...sorry, Roy. I…I should have known better." She backed away from calling him on the comment; she has tried hard not to argue with him since those stress-filled nights, knowing that he needed her support, not her sharp tongue, not when Ollie was still…

He jerked himself away from all she has done to keep him from severing ties fully with the archer. Always the peacemaker…his peacemaker. She wanted him to be happy, encouraging reconciliation even as she took pride in him standing on his own two feet.

"Yeah, well, Di, it's just embarrassing to have to explain my old man's girl calls me that much," the redhead told her. "Just…ya know, don't?"

"Roy…this…doesn't sound like you."

"Di, you told me to stand on my own, remember? So why don't you just let me, and get on with your own life? You've got problems enough with him, without bothering me so much."

"Boy-o…"

"I'm a grown man, Di." //One who just got clean from a binge because I am too fucking weak.// "Don't you think I'm a bit old for that kind of nickname?" He hated himself as he said it, but she needed to be out of his life, safe from his weakness, safe from showing him how badly he fucked up.

That last got a soft sound from her, one he almost thought was a cry stifled by a hand to the mouth.

"Roy Harper, I don' know what is going on, but why are you being so…distant?" Her voice was tight with pain, and he had to stare over at his picture of her, to remove the mental image of her standing with the phone, tears coming silently down her cheeks.

"Just get a clue, Di…if I didn't return eight phone calls, maybe that should tell you I'm over the part of life that includes you," he said, his voice a hard one and hateful, even as the sixteen year old boy inside him withered and curled into a ball.

"Roy…how…how can you do this? After all we've been through, together?" Her voice faded away, replaced by a deep inhalation. 

He felt his chest grow tight, wanted to scream and rail at the way life had done this, made it necessary to push his Dinah so hard, to make her leave him alone. "Dinah, just let it go. You don't ever have to worry about the 'kid' I was again, and I've got stuff to do." There was an even longer silence this time, but he could not make himself hang the phone up just yet. Not until he heard her one last time.

"Good-bye, Roy." She hung up then, and he sank to the bed again, closing his eyes on stinging tears. Better to keep her away, so he never had to let her know what he had done.


End file.
